Manpodcast – September 2015

Episode No. 203 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Zina Saro-Wiwa.

The Blaffer Art Museum opens “Did You Know We Taught Them How to Dance?”, Zina Saro-Wiwa’s first solo American museum exhibition on Saturday. It will feature Saro-Wiwa’s recent videos, photographs and a sound installation, all made in the Niger delta region of Nigeria between 2013 and this year. The show is organized by Amy L. Powell and will be on view at the Blaffer through December 19. It will then travel to the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois.

Saro-Wiwa is a British-Nigerian artist whose work uses Niger culture — from its food to traditional arts such as masquerade to Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry that by some measures is the most productive in the world — to address issues related to colonialism, environmental degradation caused by the oil industry and more. In the United States, Saro-Wiwa’s work has been shown at the New Museum, the Menil Collection, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and her documentary “This is Africa” was shown on HBO. She is included in the exhibition “Disguise: Masks and Global African Art,” which just closed at the Seattle Art Museum and that opens at the Fowler Museum at UCLA on October 18 before traveling to the Brooklyn Museum. Next year her work will be screened at the Tate Britain.